National Education Union members who teach in sixth form colleges have voted to accept a 4% pay offer from the Sixth Form College Association (SFCA), while simultaneously rejecting a lack of movement from the SFCA in relation to workload demands within the 2025/26 pay claim. Over 4,300 members across 72 colleges were consulted on both questions. Members voted by 93.9 per cent to accept the pay offer on a turnout of 62.9 per cent, whilst rejecting by 86.6 per cent the response by the SFCA to the workload demands on a turnout of 61.4 per cent.
The 2025/26 pay claim called for a number of workload protections, including: the addition of Planning, Preparation and Assessment (PPA) to sixth form college teacher terms and conditions; limits on contact hours; limits on class sizes; a ‘rarely cover’ equivalent to be added to terms and conditions; and agreed principles on directed time as well as workload. While there has been an improvement to sixth form college funding per student in 2025/26, sixth form college funding per student fell by over 14 per cent in real terms between 2010-2020 and has yet to return to that level overall. This has had a correspondingly negative impact on the real terms value of sixth form college teacher pay.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"NEU sixth form college teachers have accepted a pay award matching that received by their peers in schools, which goes some way to putting right the pay injustice experienced by non-academised college teachers last year, caused by inadequate funding.
"Members have clearly signalled that they expect significant movement by the SFCA on all of their workload demands. While there has been some progress made in negotiations, sixth form college teachers want the employer side to go further still, particularly around genuinely protected time for teachers to plan, prepare and assess as their school counterparts receive. We cannot accept half-measures. Now is the time to introduce substantial workload protections across all sixth form colleges, to meet the changing conditions of the 2020s."